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TI: Okay, so talk about those early days with San Jose Taiko. What was, I mean, when you got involved, so you go to the first practice or meeting, what was that like?

PJH: Frustrating. [Laughs] Because there was no teacher and people would just kind of jam. Some of the guys that were great musicians would be coming loaded. [Laughs] And we went, oh jeez, is this really that productive? But what was great was, like, I feel like expression is comin' through me, you know? There was a sense of, like, this unabashed expression, can be loud for the first time and doing, starting something and creating something with a group of people, I think that was an affinity for me, too, like a sense of community. It's not about just finding my own, my own place, but like how can we build together, so there was that adventure that I felt. And over time I still would place, play in taiko over taking classes, my urban planning classes. I was out of the door, going to practice, and then about a, after a year's time of just jamming we were invited by San Francisco Taiko Dojo to study with Tanaka-sensei, so yeah, that really kind of opened up another opportunity for unabashed expression. Felt good.

TI: And, I was, when you mentioned that first meeting, you came in there, I just wanted to ask you about almost this, this culture of Sanseis who grew up in the inner city and, and how you felt about that and when you kind of... because your background was so different, growing up in Marin County.

PJH: It seemed like that past kind of like melted away because I was already immersed in a different bubble of more, more conscious of my identity, so it's, and knowing, being so marginal all my life, feeling that taiko was allowing me to explore the cultural element, but it was also addressing bringing people together. That was like a club, a feeling, but seeing how it would touch people when we started, even in our most miserable playing, we would play for, like the Issei at a, at a picnic, and after playing, having a Issei lady come up and tearfully saying, "I am so proud. I'm so happy because you, you are making good feeling." And then it's like, I can just feel myself getting choked up, even now. Yeah. I have to play taiko.

Tom Izu: When you started, first joined taiko, where there other women that you kind of bonded with in the group and...

PJH: Yeah, actually these were friends already playing, so it was kind of like, oh, come join, come join and play. So it's not really them mentoring, it was more like we were jointly exploring. That was exciting.

TI: When I noticed in having the opportunity to interview Roy and then you, when Roy talks about taiko, I won't say it's cerebral, but it's, but he talks about it in, from a musician's perspective.

PJH: Right.

TI: And you talk about it from a very emotional...

PJH: [Laughs] Yes.

TI: Anyway, so there's a, yeah, there's a, it's interesting to see this, this difference.

PJH: Yeah.

TI: Talk about that. I mean, the importance of that, of this, this feeling, because really Roy talked about, "Wow, we had these different layers that we can play that was different from the traditional," and you're just talking about from the pure power of it and of the feeling, how it impacted the audiences.

PJH: I guess what my recall was, like my body had already experienced that Chris and Joanne feeling, that's what it was. I could feel that come through my body. And again, it was like, there was no way to explain how to do it; you just had to do it. Again, it's not like being able to, yeah, the rhetoric, it wasn't there. You just have to experience it.

TI: What was your sense about the, the importance of Japan and Japanese culture for San Jose Taiko? You had lived in Japan for about a year. Roy and others didn't have as much exposure to Japan and Japanese culture. What was your, did you think that was something that was needed for San Jose Taiko in terms of a stronger Japanese component?

PJH: For taiko?

TI: For San Jose Taiko.

PJH: Yeah, for San Jose Taiko, because, yeah, we modeled ourselves after Kinnara Taiko in Los Angeles and so, of course, we would never be playing on Japanese drums. They would be the wine barrel. So that was, we had to accept that. Then we had all these other instruments that could, we would go to Cost Plus and buy ashtrays to be our kane. It, yeah, so literally I think there was an excitement, knowing that we had to rely on our own resources, and then what we would turn to would be Japanese records, whatever we can get our hands on, and see, wow, they play like that, they wear this and that. That's not us. So it was like the musical element of creativity and expression, we knew that it had to come from us. We knew that we could not copy, or we wanted to honor the root source of what that was about and not understanding, easy to just listen and play the same rhythm patterns, but I think in that way we were being politically correct at that time, not just to appropriate ideas. There was a huge question after playing with San Francisco Taiko Dojo, is this authentic? What are we doing? That was going through my head. Are we bastardizing taiko? There would, I would say for a few years as we started, this is something that I was just thinking in my head, but I was never a purist.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.